Mama Mia That's A Gooda Sauce!!!

Right now in my garden, I am picking about 1/2 a dozen large tomatoes a day.  We have been thoroughly enjoying these on sandwiches, and salads, and sharing them as well.  Today I decided to try my hand at making my own sauce.  I have never done this before.  Not like this.  I have made angel hair pasta with barely cooked tomatoes, but never cooked a sauce all day.  Let's get started.
First, put on a cute vintage apron, because you are gonna make a mess!!!

Next, get a large pot of water up to a boil and drop tomatoes in for a minute or so, until skin splits.

Then remove and place into an ice water bath. 

This makes it very easy to peel the skin right off of the tomato.

Once all have been blanched, cut tomatoes in half and squeeze the seeds and excess water out into a bowl and discard.

Dice two whole onions, and mince several cloves of garlic, and caramelize in small amount of olive oil.  Add your tomatoes that have been squeezed of seeds. 

To this, add seasonings of choice.  I used salt, pepper, oregano, and fresh basil.  Let simmer for a couple of hours.  Then add 1/2 cup or so of red wine.  And using a stick blender, puree sauce to desired consistency. 

Put lid on sauce, leaving on low heat, and let it simmer.  At this point, your house is smelling like every kitchen in Italy!
While simmering sauce, make meatballs!  Using about 1 1/2 pounds lean sirloin, add about 1/2 cup parmesan, 1 egg, 1 whole onion finely chopped, 1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs, desired fresh herbs and seasonings.  I used salt, pepper, garlic and oregano.  Mixing thoroughly, slowly add up to 1/2 cup or so of water, until moist, but not too wet.

Roll into golf ball size meatballs, placing them on a baking sheet, cook under broiler until  lightly browned on one side, then turn to brown other side.  Watch carefully, this only takes about 4 or 5 minutes.

I put both sheets into oven at same time.  Rotating sheet underneath to top after top sheet was transferred to sauce.

 After all of the meatballs are transferred to sauce, put lid back on and let simmer for an hour.
While this was simmering, I cut up fresh zucchini and yellow squash in to inch thick rounds.
Pour some  bread crumbs or panko onto dish, and in separate dish, crack one egg and beat.  My bread crumbs were plain so I seasoned them with salt and pepper and garlic.  Dip squash into egg, then coat both sides with bread crumbs and place onto baking sheet that has been sprayed with Pam.

Bake in 400 degree oven until just fork tender.   Remove to plate, and either enjoy like this, or with sauce over them.  Erika had hers this way.  She was trying to clean the plate for me to take picture, but I was too impatient.

 Serve Spaghetti & Meatballs with green salad and loaf of crusty french bread.

Noah gave it two thumbs up.

This was absolutely delicious!!  We all thought it was so good!  I froze the other half of it to take with us to Bass Lake.  I will be doing sauce again with my tomatoes soon.  Try it.  It was easy and so far superior to sauce in a jar!!
Buon Appetito!!